Regents chief still setto raise grad numbers

The head of the state university system said he’s not backing down on plans to expand the number of college graduates despite a report which shows a degree will not be needed for most new jobs here.

Rick Myers, president of the Arizona Board of Regents, acknowledged that three out of every four job openings for the next two years will require only a high school diploma — or less. That is a figure which is higher than the national average.

But Myers called what is happening in Arizona a classic chicken-and-egg situation. He sees more college grads as a key to boosting the state’s overall economy and attracting those jobs that require more education — and pay more.

And Myers said he sees no downside to the plan to increase the number of college graduates to 30,000 by 2020, up from about 24,000 now.

“I don’t think if we educate more people it’s going to mean we’re going to have that many more people with college degrees working at McDonald’s,” he said.

The report on job openings by the state Department of Administration found that, through the end of 2014, employers will hire 8,769 cashiers, 8,413 waiters and waitresses and 8,158 food-preparation workers. And those are the top three categories, followed by retail sales, customer-service representatives and clerks.

That raises the question of whether the state university system will be producing new job-seekers who are overqualified for the work that’s available here.

Economist Dennis Hoffman of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University said the higher-education system can’t be focused solely on what jobs are immediately available.

“We desperately need more opportunities with employers that are ‘higher margin’ employers,” he said, those that hire people who are more productive and who can demand higher salaries.

“One way to get those folks is to make them aware of the fact we have a lot of talent in this state ready and willing to work,” Hoffman said.

“But you’ve got to get them here to employ the people we’re producing,” he said. “If we don’t have enough job opportunities here, the students we’re educating in this state are going to leave.”

Myers said the prediction that 75 percent of new jobs here would be for high-school grads and those with less education does not surprise him.

He said about 25 percent of Arizonans older than 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree. Myers said that suggests the university system is meeting the state’s needs.

But Myers said the state still needs to increase the number of college-educated Arizonans, especially if the state is to deal with its lackluster per capita income in comparison with other states.

Arizonans’ income lags

The most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis put Arizona’s per capita personal income at $35,979. That is 84 percent of the national average.

It also ranks Arizona as 41st from the top. Five years before that, the state was 32nd.

Hoffman said much of the jobs forecast makes sense.

He said the whole economy took a hit during the recession. Now there’s a need to “backfill” those jobs that were lost, including those at the bottom of the pay and education scale.

But Hoffman said the state can’t build an economy on that and that Arizona needs a solid base of high-wage employers who want to grow here.

“Because if we don’t, then in the next downturn, we’re going to lose all these folks again,” he said.

Matthew Benson, press aide to Gov. Jan Brewer, said the Arizona Commerce Authority is working to find those companies. But that goes back to the question of an educated workforce.

“You’re only going to bring in those employers with a workforce that can slip into those jobs,” he said.

Benson said one figure in the Department of Administration report shows the effort is paying off: The state expects a 14.2 percent increase in the number of biomedical engineers over the two-year period, the second-highest growth rate in the state.

That, however, isn’t going to move the needle much in terms of high-tech jobs: In pure numbers, that 14.2 percent translates to just 34 new biomedical engineers on top of the 239 now employed here.

Benson dismissed the question of whether Arizona college grads are going to find themselves overqualified for the jobs that are available.

“We know that education remains the surest path to self-employment in this country,” he said, citing figures that show college grads have a much lower unemployment rate than those with only a high-school diploma.

And Myers cited a direct link between wages and education. He said increasing the number of college graduates should get Arizona closer to the national average of more than 30 percent of the adult population instead of 25 percent here, a move he said which should directly correlate with higher income.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is position us to where we have a chance to change the equation in Arizona.

Technical skills an issue

But Aruna Murthy, director of economic analysis for the Department of Administration, said there is a larger debate about pushing as many people as possible to go to college. She said there is evidence that the economy is going to need more people with technical skills that do not require a four-year degree.

“It’s a new age,” she said. Murthy said there is data to show there are many people in Arizona earning $50,000 or more with just a trade-school education.

Benson acknowledged the slide in Arizona’s ranking in per capita income. But he said there’s a reason for that.

“Arizona was particularly hard-hit by the recession, especially the construction industry, which happened to have a lot of high-wage jobs,” he said. “So we’re coming out of a deep hole.”

And Benson said the job-demand forecast reflects the reality of the Arizona economy and the high percentage of jobs which just don’t demand a lot of education.

“That is the result of Arizona having a particularly strong leisure and hospitality industry,” he said, workers at bars, restaurants and hotels. He said that industry helped prop up the economy during the last five years.

“So we’re glad that we have that,” he said.

Murthy said, though, that Arizona can’t build an economy on that.

“We need to have some jobs on the lower end, the middle end and the higher end,” she said.

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